1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to a cassette reel, and is directed to a cassette reel suitable for use as a video tape cassette.
2. Description of the Prior Art
There has previously proposed a cassette reel in use for a video tape cassette as shown in FIGS. 1 and 2 which respectively illustrate a perspective view and a cross-sectional view of a central portion thereof.
In FIGS. 1 and 2, reference numeral 1 designates a hub which has a lower flange 2 formed integrally therewith. In the present example, an upper flange 3 made of a tranparent plastic plate is fixed on an upper end face 6 of the hub 1. More specifically, the upper flange 3 is fixed to the hub 1 by welding protrusions 5 formed on the lower face of its step portion 4 to the upper end face 6 of the hub 1 by ultrasonic heating. The upper flange 3 has a circular concave portion 7 having a diameter slightly smaller than the outer diameter of the hub 1 formed on the upper surface thereof and an opening 8 bored through the central portion thereof. A center pin 9, which will contact with a cassette reel holding spring provided on the inner surface of a video tape cassette housing, is loosely sandwitched in the opening 8 by the lower face of the central portion of the upper flange 3 and the upper end face of the central portion of the hub 1. A hub driving shaft inserting hole 10 is provided on the lower side of the hub 1 with which a hub driving shaft disposed in a video tape recorder will be engaged. Further, the hub 1 is provided on its outer peripheral surface with a clamp piece (not shown) and a clamp piece inserting portion 11 so as to grip and fix the end of a video tape (not shown). The lower flange 2 is provided along its outer periphery with reel brake engaging teeth 12.
FIG. 3 shows a video tape cassette equipped with two cassette reels 13 constructed as described above. A cassette housing 14 is provided on its upper surface with a window 15 made of a transparent plastic plate through which parts of the cassette reels 13 are visible so that the amounts of a video tape 16 wound on the respective reels 13, that is, the amount of a tape portion already used for recording and the amount of an unused tape portion can be confirmed. Incidentally, reference numerals 17 designate springs for holding the cassette reels 13, respectively.
When the cassette reels 13 are arranged in the cassette tape housing 14 having the window 15 made of a transparent plastic plate on the upper surface thereof as shown in FIG. 3, the amount of used and unused portions of the video tape 16 can be seen so that it is convenient for practical use. However, the transparent window 15 makes the internal construction of the hub 1 visible through the bottom surface 7A of the concave portion 7, which detracts from the appearance of the video tape cassette.
To attend to this problem, it may be proposed to deposit a metallic foil such as a gold foil on the bottom surface 7A of the concave portion 7 of the transparent upper flange 3 so as to make the internal construction of the hub 1 invisible and also produce a decorative effect. To be specific, as shown in FIG. 4, a transferable foil film 19 having a transferable metallic foil 18 deposited thereon is placed on the bottom surface 7A of the concave portion 7 of the upper flange 3 and then pressed by a heated hard rubber stamper 20 to transfer the metallic foil 18 to the bottom surface 7A of the concave portion 7. In other words, a hot stamp is carried out by the use of a metallic foil layer 21, as shown in FIG. 5.
However, with the conventional cassette reels 13, the periphery portion of the transferable metallic foil layer 19 cannot be cut satisfactorily so that it is occasionally impossible to transfer the metallic foil 18 to the bottom surface 7A in compliance with the profile of the hard rubber stamper 20 and hence to form a metallic foil layer 21 with its peripheral profile conforming to that of the bottom surface 7A of the concave portion 7.